Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Flooding, Gay Marriage, St Medard and Mormons (2014)

The Halo Halo! Column from the March 2014 issue of the Socialist Standard

Help for people in various parts of the country who were flooded out during January and February may have been slow to arrive, if it came at all. But at least they do have ex-UKIP councillor David Silvester to thank for bringing the cause of it all to the nation’s attention. And, as it turns out, it was nothing to do with climate change or the lack of dredging. It was all the fault of the gays. Or, more specifically, according to Mr Silvester, because David Cameron acted ‘arrogantly against the gospel’ in bringing about the Equal Marriage (same sex) Act.

‘I don’t have a problem with gay people’ he explained. ‘My prayer for them is they will be healed’. ‘I am a man who prays every day for every member of the cabinet and for every member of the royal family and when, two years ago, I wrote to the Prime Minister to warn him there are repercussions for serious breaches of the coronation oath, such as this one has been, when I saw what followed I naturally assumed this was the result of them going against God’s laws’. ‘This is not new, this happened in the Old Testament – they were warned if they turned against God there would be pestilence, there would be war, there would be disasters’.

Well, you can’t argue with that can you? Bloody gays. Perhaps UKIP will send them all home before it gets any worse.

One Lincolnshire vicar, though, who obviously believes there is not enough scientific evidence to blame gays for the flooding, has a different solution. According to the Guardian (1 February), the vicar got her flock to pray to St Medard to sort the problem out. St Medard, apparently, was a French bishop who died in 545 AD, and who has some clout in controlling the weather because he was once sheltered from the rain by an eagle.

Obviously if you want your prayers to be heard at the very top you’ve got to go through the proper channels. It’s not what you know, it seems, it’s who you know.

Our reliance on God to help us out, though, may soon be in jeopardy. Or, at least, any help from the Mormon God. A summons has been issued for him to appear before Westminster Magistrates Court on14 March (or, rather for Mr Thomas Monson, the Mormon God’s prophet on earth, to make the trip over from Salt Lake City to attend the court).

The summons, described in the Telegraph as ‘one of the most unusual documents ever issued by a British court’ came about because a disgruntled ex-member of the flock now believes that some of the Mormon’s more bizarre teachings may amount to fraud.

The teachings in question include the ‘fact’ that Adam and Eve lived just six thousand years ago, that Native Americans are descended from a family of ancient Israelites and that the Book of Mormon was translated from ancient gold plates and revealed to their founder, Joseph Smith, by an angel.

The Church said that Mr Monson had no intention of attending the court hearing and dismissed the summons as containing ‘bizarre allegations’.

Well, the Mormons should recognise bizarre allegations when they see them shouldn’t they?
NW


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